Chapter 3 – Friends?
Tuesday Day, May 25, 2004

Samantha stopped and grabbed two sandwiches before meeting Martin to review the records. The sandwich was a sort of peace offering to break the ice since the night before. Her stomach was a tangled mess of nerves and she just hoped that Martin would talk to her.

Martin was already in the conference room with piles of documents spread before him. He looked up as she entered and actually smiled at her. She was blown back that he could still be happy to see her. She immediately smiled back and offered him the sandwich, "Thought we'd better fuel up before we get too buried in documents." However, he failed to reach for the offering and the smile faded.

"Look, Samantha, about last night, I'm sorry, I was out of line. I shouldn't have said what I said, I don't know what I'm talking about." Phew, breath, he told himself. "I just, it was a long day yesterday and I, um, …"

"No, Martin, you were right," she interrupted. "I just couldn't see it. You were right about a lot of things, things I'm still trying to sort out." She continued, "I'm just glad that you're still speaking to me after how I treated you."

Martin looked hurt and responded, "Of course I'm still talking to you, we're still friends aren't we. I mean, friends have disagreements, but still stay friends."

"Well," Samantha stammered, "I'm not really a friend expert. I started to think about what you said last night and some of it made sense so I picked up the phone to call someone to talk to about it, but I didn't have anyone to call. In fact, I almost called you," she confessed.

"But you didn't. You should have, I felt horrible and didn't sleep all night," Martin said scoldingly.

"Well, maybe some other time. We'd better get some work done." And with that Samantha pulled a file close to her and Martin finally reached for his sandwich. She felt relieved to have talked about last night, however she still had many issued to deal with and didn't feel any closer to resolving them.

TBC